Opinion by Anthony Watts
There has never been a time at WUWT that I’ve used the word “slimy” in a headline. This is a special case. I thought of about a half dozen words I could have used and finally decided on this one. I chose it because of precedence in a similar situation where Steve McIntyre wrote his rebuttal to a similar piece of amateur journalism entitled Slimed by Bagpuss the Cat Reporter.
Last week, the Guardian invited me to participate in their new online story forum. They were seeking the input from climate sceptics on issues they were writing about. They especially wanted my input. I said I’d consider it, but was a bit hesitant given the Guardian’s reporting history. But, after some discussion with one of the reporters, it seemed like a genuine attempt at outreach. I suggested that if they really wanted to make a gesture that would make people take notice, they should consider banning the use of the word “denier” from climate discourse in their newspaper. Nobody I know of in the sceptic community denies that the earth has gotten warmer in the past century. I surely don’t. But we do question the measured magnitude, the cause, and the scientific methods.
Now, any progress that has been made in outreach by the Guardian has been dashed by the most despicably stupid newspaper article I’ve ever seen about climate skeptics. The Guardian for some reason thought it would be a good idea to print it while at the same time trying to reach across the aisle to climate skeptics for ideas. Needless to say, they’ve horribly botched that gesture with the printing of this article.
Here’s the headline and link to the Guardian article:
Climate sceptics are recycled critics of controls on tobacco and acid rain
It’s full of the kind of angry, baseless, stereotypical innuendo I’d expect Joe Romm to write. Instead, the writer is Jeffrey D Sachs. who is professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, home to NASA GISS.
And it’s not just the Guardian. Apparently this article has been shopped around. It made it into The National in Abu Dhabi which you can read here. Apparently the article from Columbia’s Sachs was distributed by an outfit called The Project Syndicate.
A check of their website show the author list, some of the stories they are pushing to media, and they seem to be rather vague about where their money comes from. In their contact and support page all they offer is a PO box for their HQ in Prague:
Project Syndicate PO Box 130 120 00 Prague 2 Czech Republic
So much for transparency.
Back to the article. After reading it, one can see that Sachs is simply repeating the same sort of drivel we get from trolls every day on climate science discussions. Baseless accusations of being involved with deep pockets, connections to tobacco, denial of links to cancer, and other assorted decades old slimy talking points that have nothing to do with the real issue at hand: scientific integrity in climate science.
It is clear that professor Sachs didn’t do any original research for this article, he simply repeated these same slimy talking points we see being pushed by internet trolls and NGO’s like Greenpeace. He provided no basis for the claims, only the innuendo. It’s a pathetic job of journalism. It’s doubly pathetic that the Guardian allowed this to be printed at a time when they were reaching out to skeptics.
It seems incomprehensible to Sachs and others like him that people like myself, Steve McIntyre, Jeff Id, Joe D’Aleo, John Coleman, and others who write about climate science issues might have original thoughts and do original research of our own. It seems impossible to him that an “army of Davids”, such as the readers and contributors to CA and WUWT, could shake the money bloated foundations of climate science today with daily blog posts, FOI requests, and commentary. No it had to be big money funding these skeptics somewhere.
Newsflash: It’s worse than you thought. It’s a growing revolution of like minded people worldwide that want to see the climate science done right and without the huge monied interests it has fallen prey to.. Tobacco, big oil, and other assorted contrived boogeymen haven’t anything to do with skeptics that question CRU, GISS, NOAA, etc.on these pages and the pages of other blogs.
Oh sure they’ll say “but you went to the Heartland convention, and they took money from Exxon once, they defended smokers rights, that makes you complicit.” Bull. I’ve made my objections loudly known to Heartland on these issues, but the fact is that no other organizations stepped up to help skeptics with a conference to exchange information. While people like Sachs were denouncing “deniers”, and Al Gore was leading multimillion dollar media campaigns saying we were “flat earthers” and “moon landing deniers”, no scientific organizations were stepping forward to ask the tough questions, or to even help regular people like you and me who were asking them. Had any such scientific organization had the courage, you can bet that skeptics would have flocked there. Instead these organizations all got on the consensus bandwagon.
The claims made that skeptics are connected to tobacco companies is ludicrous. It is especially ludicrous in my case.
So here’s my challenge to Professor Sachs. Give me ten minutes in a room with you. That’s all I need. I’ll tell you about my story related to tobacco. I’ll tell you how secondhand smoke most likely contributed to my profound hearing loss through a series of badly treated ear infections as a child, I’ll tell you about my efforts to get my parents to stop smoking , and then, I’ll tell you how I watched both of my parents die of tobacco related disease. I’ll tell you what I think of tobacco products and companies. I’ll tell you to your face. I promise you it won’t be pretty, I promise you that you’ll feel my pain caused by tobacco.
Finally, I’ll tell you what I think of you for writing this crap you market as journalism without asking leading skeptics any questions, but instead relying on this slimy innuendo that’s been repeated for years.
Professor Sachs, contact me by leaving a comment if you have personal integrity enough to hear it.
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Scipio (03:30:26) :
When debate degenerates to ‘ad hominem attacks’ you’ve won your argument. This is the last resort of the desperate who have run out of worthy ideas.
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Reply:
Bingo! Well said.
Don’t worry Anthony, Sachs is a hairdo. He’s just another dismal scientist (economist) whose failures in his own field (transforming economies of former communist east European states) have seen him migrate to join the climate change bandwagon.
http://autonomousmind.wordpress.com/2010/02/20/when-it-comes-to-climate-science-economists-are-still-dismal/
When people like Sachs resort to such vacuous nonsense, you know they have lost the argument. But for them the science is still sound, right? Their revenue stream depends on that being so.
Wow, that article sounded like a desperate last ditch effort to convince a growing skeptical world. Talk about cirling the wagons!
Today’s campaigners against action on climate change are in many cases backed by the same lobbies, individuals, and organisations that sided with the tobacco industry to discredit the science linking smoking and lung cancer. Later, they fought the scientific evidence that sulphur oxides from coal-fired power plants were causing “acid rain.” Then, when it was discovered that certain chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were causing the depletion of ozone in the atmosphere, the same groups launched a nasty campaign to discredit that science, too
How fool you are Jeffy!, you are so transparent buddy!, you have just told us, that, instead, YOU and YOUR PEERS, did all that, invented all those tales, from cancer smoking to einstein´s relativity and its multidimensional unexisting and child scaring phantoms!
Have you ever cornered a scared animal? These are the most dangerous animals. When an animal is cornered, it cannot run. The flight-or-fight instinct takes over and the animal fights because flight is impossible. A cornered animal is the most dangerous animal.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Except such attack to increase because that is all they have left. These so-called scientists and professors don’t have facts, but they they have juvenile name-calling. They are cornered by the facts, so their only option left is to fight. Their only options are admit defeat and give up the money and power or attack the people exposing them; but we know that ain’t going to happen. People do bad things for money.
During the Stalingrad campaign there was an Xmas broadcast from the front line saying…”We are Winning” That was a fake as well!
The Guardian is only good for wrapping up fish and chips Anthony! Never mind mate, what does not hurt you makes you stronger.
Re: Dawn Watson (Feb 22 03:58),
Just think a little on this Dawn…….It wasn’t a government mandate that got us off the horses back and on to motor vehicles, it was private enterprise and demand and supply.
And how about thinking about the precedent that would be set if lies, false science and vested interests were allowed to hold sway. What would/could be next?
And how about a little thought about the ends justifying the means? A fine way to run global politics.
How about thinking about the millions dying TODAY, NOW in poor countries, and them being told of imagined problems 50 years hence? Why don’t you convince them that they should worry about AGW or peak oil instead of their kids STARVING TODAY.
Spare me the indignant rants.
A long time back I worked with a fellow whose stock response was “Don’t confuse me with facts—my mind is made up”.
Geoff A
Without all of that horrible oil and gas, Professor Sachs would be starving and freezing to death in the dark. Talk about a clueless, ungrateful malcontent..
Excellent “rant” Andrew! I love a really good rant and yours is right out there among the best. Every now and then it does the soul good to get it out of your system, doesn’t it? Those who’ve sold their souls to the AGW funding ghouls can never know such cathartic relief. They rant, but something remains stuck inside that can never be disgorged.
I like being called a denier and wear the moniker proudly. As people here have pointed out, if we are deniers then the other side must be believers. And since the term believers assumes a trust in something by faith, it clearly shows the AGW religion for what it is.
G
This is the latest concerted effort by the AGW promotion community to silence skeptics.
By the way, it is now a plot by us, according to some AGW promoter I listened to on NPR yesterday, that global warming was turned into ‘climate change’.
And just to prove that AGW promoters are not marketing driven, this same person, during the same interview, told the softball reporter that the new name for global warming is ‘climate crisis’.
I pity Naomi Oreskes for her paranoia.
======================
Dawn,
Do you think that replacing fuels with windmills and solar cells?
Do you think that imposing a $trillion cure for a non-existent problem is a good thing?
And do you realize that Vancouver exists in no small part because it was a place to access the far north yet had light winters?
Dawn said;
“even if climate change wasn’t happening and wasn’t down to GHGs – have you not thought of dwindling fossil fuel reserves?? energy security anyone?”
If you read this blog a little more closely you will see that our host is a enthusiastic user of electric vehicles and shares an interest in renewable energy with many of his readers. I have written an article on wave energy myself.
Why is the weather In Glasgow freaky? Perhaps you would also tell me when Vancouver records began?
Tonyb
I put the following response to Sachs’ rhetoric:
Mr Sachs and his readers may be interested to know that, in addition to annual funding from both British and American tax payers, the CRU at UEA have received considerable funds from the following vested interests:
British Petroleum – Oil, LNG
Broom?s Barn Sugar Beet Research Centre – Food to Ethanol
The United States Department of Energy – Nuclear
UK Nirex Ltd. – Nuclear
Sultanate of Oman – LNG
Shell Oil, ?Oil – LNG
Tate and Lyle – Food to Ethanol
Nuclear Installations Inspectorate – Nuclear
KFA Germany – Nuclear
World Wildlife Fund – Political Advocates
Greenpeace International – Political Advocates
IPPC AR 4 (2007) has admitted serious errors on the following claims:
Sea-level rises: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/21/sea-level-geoscience-retract-siddall
Himalayan Glacier retreating rates – Non-science based claim, known by IPCC President to be erroneous and forced (by sceptics) to retract.
Arctic sea-ice melting: http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
Droughts in Africa will lead to sever food shortages – Non-science based claim, since retracted by IPCC.
Increase in levels of Hurrican severity: http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/may_june_july.jpg
Polar Bears are not in decline or endangered. Brazilian rainforests have been denuded because of logging (now to produce bio-fuels!). Antarctic sea and land ice are expanding. etc, etc, etc
I understand why Anthony is upset.
At the same time, this is sooooooooooo bad! It is hard to believe a grown-up wrote it. It is mush. Nothing more.
If more people affiliated with the University read it, he may not be long to remain….?
The other possibility is that “carbon trading interests…?” held a “gun” to his head: write something; defend the science, or this will be the end of funding dollars for the institute….. So, reluctantly, he did.
I don’t know… I do know the piece is very bad. Seventh grade stuff.
………Lady in Red
Anthony, they can’t help themselves. All True Believers of a faith must demonize the opponents. Us atheists have been this for a long time.
For a realistic look at passive smoking see ‘dave hitt/facts.
P.S. Suggest that all proud sceptics send sensible, science-based counter-arguments to Sachs. HAPPY HUNTING!!
“well no actually my Auntie lives in Vancouver and they’ve had the warmest winter on record – no snow at all. ”
Well, your auntie doesn’t know it, but Vancouver has in fact the mildest climate of any Winter Games host city. Vancouver has an average temperature of 4.8 degrees Celsius. Vancouver has an average snowfall of just 48 centimetres and, as most Vancouverites know, it is rare for even that small amount to stay on the ground for more than a couple of days.
So all this is not due to Global Warming, but merely a political choice of choosing a snow arm area to hold the Winter Olympics.
“However there are a lot of oil and coal companies with a lot of vested interests and a lot of £££ at stake to keep the status quo”
Pure out of marketing reasons Oil Companies currently do have a lot of vested interests in AGW and don’t forget the Carbon Credit Exchange market (where Al Bore and Pachauri have big vested interests).
Anthony,
When a pinheaded coward like Sachs writes such drivel, it really shows that he is gutless, clueless but most of all afraid.
Afraid his carefully constructed lip-lock on the public teat will be terminated and his get rich & famous by flogging fear & hysteria scheme will blow up in his face.
Sachs is just another cheap eco-grifter riding the great AGW ponzi scam to an easy career and a fat bank account.
Getting rich through misrepresentation is a morally reprehensible act . . . . put Sach’s name on the list for the trials to follow.
no scientific organizations were stepping forward to ask the tough questions
Do you have a list of “the tough questions?” And are they all purely scientific questions? Post them here!
Anthony:
The Guardian has closed off comments – total was 1037. I have not read them all – it seemed very slow – but judging from the reactions to and recommendations of the comments Sachs’s piece was seen for exactly what it was – a PR hit piece. I suspect that someone, somewhere is putting two and two together and realizing that more and more people are simply not buying the type of ad hominem arguments that Sachs tried to put forward.
I think the ultimate irony is to have somebody with close ties to Soros pontificate about others who actually have no connections to nefarious behind hte scenes actors and interests. Prof. Sachs should be ashamed of himself.
Socialism & AGW: clones. Pyramid schemes. Extortion rackets.
“But sometimes the information is not available or it’s faked.”
…-
“True lies
Markets work by assimilating and pricing information. But sometimes the information is not available or it’s faked. The Greek debt crisis has focused renewed attention on the accounting procedures used by other European countries to measure their compliance with Eurozone guidelines now that the information shortcomings have been revealed. Investors, having lost confidence in the official numbers provided by Athens are demanding better figures. The Wall Street Journal says new doubts about “sophisticated” reporting practices used in the past are being expressed not just for Portugal but even for core countries like France and Germany. One particularly controversial practice is the use of currency swaps on the advice of, among others, Goldman Sachs.”
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2010/02/22/true-lies/
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/013415.html#comments